Rich Aucoin aims to destroy dance music’s greatest irony: that its communal audience experience is built on songs often recorded in isolation by studio auteurs. In contrast, over 500 musicians from across Canada contributed to this EP—a companion piece to his forthcoming full-length—and you can hear their weight behind every electro beat and singalong. The […]
Ryan McNutt
Posted inArts + Music
Aucoin’s thrill ride
“Oh man, can you hear them screaming in the background?” It seems fitting that when I reach Rich Aucoin by phone, the day before a show in Toronto, he’s waiting in line for the Behemoth rollercoaster at Canada’s Wonderland. “Pretty much every time I’m playing a show that’s somewhere close to an amusement park, I […]
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Gamma Gamma Rays’ goodbye
It’s odd to see a record release show also promoted as a band’s last gig before “a pretty indefinite hiatus.” But for Halifax’s Gamma Gamma Rays, the mixed messages aren’t just a marketing ploy. Friday’s wet/dry show at the Bus Stop Theatre not only celebrates the completion of their first LP, Beeps, but will likely […]
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Boxer the Horse is riding high
Island rock Boxer the Horse is riding high Press play on Would You Please, the first full-length from Charlottetown’s Boxer the Horse, and from the moment its first delightfully old-fashioned organ riff kicks into gear, it’s hard not to find yourself playing the music geek’s favourite party game: Spot the Influence. The problem, though, is […]
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Sweet Sadies
Few bands in Canadian music have a resume of collaborations as extensive as Toronto’s The Sadies, and this past week they added author Margaret Atwood to the list. “We had a slot of our own scheduled on CBC’s Q that got moved by a day because Margaret Atwood was going to be in, and they […]
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Arcade Fire
So this is how it all falls apart, right? The troublesome third album, where for every rare triumph—your OK Computer, your Moon and Antarctica—there are dozens of buzz bands that either buckle under the pressure to evolve or prove that their initial formula was all they had to offer in the first place. Add Arcade […]
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Wolf Parade
Do we need Wolf Parade anymore? After all, Dan Boeckner’s and Spencer Krug’s other projects (Handsome Furs and Sunset Rubdown, respectively) are riding on creative highs. More importantly, the last Wolf Parade album (At Mount Zoomer) was a crippling disappointment; it was like each frontman was writing in their own world, robbing fans of the […]
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State of playlists
If the Billboard and iTunes charts are any indication, the “song of the summer” sweepstakes are already over, and Katy Perry’s tragically misspelled “California Gurls” has claimed the title. A shame, really. The song reeks of calculated desperation: “Please please PLEASE let me be your anthem this year.” Great summer songs shouldn’t try so hard—it’s […]
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The Gaslight Anthem
What if The Replacements wrote Bruce Springsteen songs? If The Gaslight Anthem were merely an answer to that question, they’d already rank among the best possible ideas for a band. But don’t let that referential exterior fool you into thinking these Jersey punks inauthentic. American Slang offers up sincere rock ’n’ roll that aches in […]
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Running with Caribou
Of all the artists you might have predicted to make the dance album of 2010, Caribou probably wasn’t on your shortlist. But with a decade’s worth of critically acclaimed, award-winning bedroom electronica to his credit, Dan Snaith—the man behind the moniker—was determined to make a clean break from people’s expectations. “I was very conscious of […]
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Born Ruffians
Remember when indie rock sounded, well, indie? Before every upstart buzz band had access to a pocket symphony? On their second album, Say It, Toronto’s Born Ruffians recall those simpler times. The stripped-down minimalism—guitar, bass, drums and little fuss—is endearing, and there are a handful of keepers on the record like the rolling “What to […]
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The Black Keys
For all of Danger Mouse’s inspired pairings, from James Mercer of The Shins (Broken Bells) to Cee-Lo Green (Gnarls Barkley), there was something special about his work behind the dials for blues-rock duo The Black Keys on its last record, Attack and Release. On Brothers, the Keys mostly go it alone—Mouse produced only the record’s […]